contentious races before. every time, we end upcoming together to pursue the common good. one particularly famous virginian confronted a bitterly divided electorate after the presidential election in 1800. relishing the victory or governing only for his supporters, thomas jefferson devoted much of his first inaugural address to bridging partisan divides. he said, quote, every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. we have called by different names brethren of the same principle. 213 years later, the truth is that our differences of opinion are still often not a difference of opinion or goal. over the next four years most democrats and republicans in

virginia want to make virginia a model for pragmatic leadership that is friendly to job creation. a model for strong schools that prepare our students for the jobs of tomorrow. the model for welcoming the best and brightest scientists and innovators, no matter your race, gender, religion, or who you love. and a model for an official transportation system that reduces grid lock for our families and our business. when all of this is only possible, if virginia is also the model for bipartisan

cooperation, and that's a view i their with the next lieutenant governor, the commonwealth of virginia, ralph northland. while there are a lot of proud democrats here, and aren't we proud tonight, folks? i'm also particularly proud to welcome all of the republicans who are here tonight. give them a great round of applause. the truth is that this election was never a choice between democrats and republicans. it was a choice about whether virginia would continue the main stream bipartisan tradition that served us so well over the last decade and a time when washington was often broken, just think about what virginia

has been able to accomplish when we work together. under governor mark warner, we preserves our triple a bond raid raiting and he made the single largest investment in k-12 education in virginia history. under governor jim cain, we were honored as the best state to do business, the best managed state. and he prudently put in us through the great recession. and let me say this, under government bob mcdonald, it 's the lowest on the east coast. we pass the first transportation funding in 27 years with bipartisan support. now, during the next four years, it will be my obligation an honor to continue that tradition

and to get started, over the next three months, i am going to work hard to reach out to every single republican in the general assembly. i want to listen to them and i want to work with them so we can advance our shared goals. the economic challenges facing virginia are daunting. sequestration for another year and more federal budget cuts on the horizon. but for those of you who know me well, i believe a daunting challenge is always a great opportunity. working together, we will protect the jobs that we have, but we will work to diversify our economy. first is workforce training. for me, the best part of this campaign i was able to visit every single all 23 community colleges in the commonwealth of virginia.

meet people of all ages who are gaining new skills for a new economy and finding opportunity to simplify to do what we need to do to make sure we have the jobs of the 21st century. they are our true asians of workforce development and we have reduced funding in the last 20 years by 40%. we need to make sure we're investing in our education system. when you take average virginia pay to average virginia pay, we rank 50 out of 50 states. fwheed to work together to pay our teachers what they deserve in the commonwealth of virginia. 80% of the brain is developed between birth and 3 years old, we need to make sure that we're investing in early childhood development.

also, the passage of a funding bill is the first step in addressing the transportation problem we face in virginia. in the next four years, we have to prove to the taxpayers that we can spend money effectively and efficiently to reduce congestion and create economic activity. in the coming months, we face the critical moments on the medicaid expansion. it was perhaps the clearest issue that voters had in this election. but, again, this wasn't really a partisan choice. instead, a bipartisan coalition of democrats and republicans, business groups and hospitals have said we need to accept the medicaid expansion and bring virginia's taxpayer money back to virginia.

throughout this campaign, i listened to the concerns of republican friends. that's why i'm committed to finding consensus on how to reform and expand medicaid. and whether it's education, transportation, or health care, it's absolutely critical that we move forward in a way that's fiscally responsible. virginia has a national reputation for strong fiscal management and that's something i'm deeply committed to sustaining. finally, immaterialed to say something specifically. to the hundreds of thousands of supporters of ken cucinelli and mr. sarvis -- and i know to the hundreds of thousands of you that you worked so hard and i know tonight is not easy. i've been involved in a lot of campaigns that didn't succeed,

including my own race for governor in 2009. i understand that emotions are wrong. i have been there. i get it. while i promise you tonight thatly be a governor for all virginians, the real test is my actions when i take office. i expect you to hold me to my pledge to work with both sides and i hope that once i hope once we start to make progress on progress, i can earn your trust. virginia, thank you for the honor of electing me to serve as the 72nd governor of the commonwealth of virginia. thank you. god bless you. god bless the commonwealth of virginia of the united states of

america. thank you. [ applause ]

>> and senior contributor. so let's begin with what happened last week with the

november 2013 off year election. what do you make of it? >> i think you've got obviously for republicans, three big races to keep an eye on. the one gets talked about the least is alabama, the special election congressional race, a primary. you have bradley burn, a business-backed republican to feed a guy named dean young, which is a tea party candidate. that's the empire strikes back. the republican party reasserting its authority and over the primaries. the two gubernatorial elections. how does chris christie, how does a republican win a blue state by such a wide margin. great if you're a republican. it's a missed opportunity. republicans had a real chance to pick up to win that race. i think just a perfect storm of problems. you know, sort of a conspire to

defeat ken cuccinelli. everybody thought it was going to be a blowout, a lot of republican money went away. in a ridiculous way it went to new jersey where people wanted to be on the side of a winner because it pushed cucinelli over the winner's line. >> do you agree with the tea party folks like amy creamer said the gop establishment left ken cucinelli. had they done so, he would have won? >> i do. i think the funny thing is that you can also blame the tea party. i think the shutdown really hurt ken cucinelli. northern virginia, especially a lot of government employees. exit polls showed a lot of them were really upset about the shutdown. so they were voting for that. upset with republicans, hurt the republican brand in virginia. it also delayed people being upset about obama care.

because had the obama care begun on october 1, the whole debacle of the rollout and the exchanges, you might have had months of ken cucinelli running with twinned at his back, with the national narrative beating up on obama care, cucinelli might have had a great last month, the money might have flowed in, and he might have won. but virginia republicans can blame both the establishment and the tea party i think for this one. it's a real missed opportunity. >> what is the message coming out of that gubernatorial race for both parties? >> there's several messages. they've known ken cucinelli for a decade. i like him a lot. i was rooting for him as well as a conservative certainly. but there are several lessons. one i think is clear happening in the national level clearly impacted what's happening with the local races, right across

the potomac from washington, d.c. i do think the shut down hurt him. there are a lot of things along the way. one thing that republicans need to learn. it happened in alabama and in virginia. in virginia, ken cucinelli, the reason he was the republican nominee is he had outmaneuvered bill bowling, the lieutenant governor. bill bowling thought it was his turn to be governor. ken's team outmaneuvered him. there were hurt feelingings. instead of saying, look, let's rally around the conservative nominee. he may be too conservative, yes, he outmaneuvered us. let's come together and elect a republican? they didn't do that. they cast stones the whole time. it's fighting against the establishment and against the democrats. the opposite thing happened in alabama where bradley burn, the

more establishment business friendly republican defeated dean young, the tea party candidate. dean young said in his concession speech, i'm not even going to vote for bradley burn, the republican. that probably won't hurt him, probably is going to win. but the point is, this is a trend. if the tea party guy wins, the moderate people take their ball and go home. if an establishment candidate wins, the tea party is not going to vote for him. the republicans aren't going to be able to win if they have that mentality. fight it out in the primaries. you have to come together if you're going to win the general election. that's a huge lesson. >> the president was in new orleans on friday talking about the economy, trying to change the subject from the health care law, pushing for congress to act on a couple of pieces of legislation.

talk about what it means for 2014. >> unemployment rate still picked up. we don't know all of the data, but it could be down because of what happened in washington. that makes no sense. the self-inflicted wounds don't have to happen. they shouldn't happen again. we should not be injuring ourselves every few month ms. we should be investing in ourselves. we should be building, not tearing things down. rather than refighting the same ole battles again and again and again, we should be fighting to make sure everybody who works hard in america and hard right here in new orleans, they have a chance to get ahead. that's what we should be focussed on. >> that play in 2014. >> i don't think so. everybody knows barack obama is a good speaker. i don't know if he's going to wow us with his rhetoric anymore. there would be realities he has

to face. and i think that republicans are poised to win a lot of seats in the midterms. i don't know if it will be enough to take back the senate, it might be. but it has nothing to do with rhetoric, not currently, it has to do with action in obama care. it's entirely possible that i was talking to an industry insider on friday who told me nobody in the industry believed that the obama care exchanges will be fixed by november 30. which was the fall-back promise. not if you like your insurance, you keep it. you'll have vulnerable red state democrats, mary landrieu, mark pryor, who, if november 30 comes and goes and the obama care website isn't fixed, they will begin having to assess their

political survival. they'll turn on the ship and turn on it or go down. it's likely they'll have that 2014. if that happens, nothing succeeds like success. winning covers a multitude of sins. talk about sports analogies, if you don't have a football team that's losing, you have bickering in the locker room, fighting, back biting, you start winning a couple of game, all of a sudden, the problems go away. so it could be as much problems as republicans have had in fighting in the civil war, you start winning some elections, it could be interesting, feelings could subside. >> on that infighting. let me show you the ad put together, the digital ad in the main street advocacy taking a look at mocking tea party backed candidates from past elections. >> it's only the special few

that went at it with the life of shame. >> it's a horrible situation that is something that god intended to happen. >> it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> i'm not a witch. >> what were they thinking? the time to act is now. help us to protect main street. >> what do you make of that? >> well, i think this is like "the empire striking back". that ad isn't helpful in terms of uniting republicans and conservatives, no. but the childhood taunt, they started it. they were conservative groups, the conservative's fund that they've been targeting republicans and beating up on them and saying, for example, let's take the funds strategy.

it arguably cost the gubernatorial election in virginia. they say if you're a republican and disagree with us on that strategy, you're a rhino, you support obama care. it's one of the things where we're in the midst of the civil war. both sides are pushing back. they are not helpful. i think it's possible they may have a positive result. up until now, i think it's a thing that the grassroots conservative, the tea party, are beating up on the establishment for a long time. the establishment was hoping they could go away and co-opt them. senator mitch mcconnell who faces a primary and general election challenge coming up in 2014 in kentucky, he's a senate minority leader who happens to be vulnerable if the sendoff for republican challenge and a tough general election, he is -- i think they tried to co-opt the

tea party initially. he hired jesse benton, part of the ron paul family, part of rand paul's campaign manager, i think they were hoping they could make peace with the tea part party. hate to sound so pejorative. it just didn't work. you have bevin and kentucky primary, mitch mcconnell running ads attacking mitch mcconnell. i think mcconnell and the national republican senatorial committee have decided we have to fight back. jonathan martin at "the new york times" reported on the other week where the national republican senatorial committee is blacklisting a republican consulting firm that is running ads attacking republicans. this is like inside baseball.

they wouldn't have time on other cable news to get into the weeds like this. but it's a interesting story. if they can get past this, there could be a number of time. >> gerald, in ft. myers, georgia. republican caller. how. >> how are you today good morning. >> i was a democrat when the first two times obama was elected but i ended upturning republican because the new health care exchange and how it's impacted people my age, around the age of 23. i got employed by a big company. that company took advantage of the exemption for employers. i felt that if they included the health care law, they just got by it. a lot of employers now adays telling their employees, okay, so go to healthcare.gov. for someone my age to get

insurance, it starts around $207 a month. that's almost a $6400 a year deductib deductible, that's ridiculous. so i changed to republicans just because of how this -- of this health care law. there's good things like being able to keep -- parents being able to keep their kids on the coverage until they're 26. but, however, i think this thing is going to shaft younger people like me. >> right. >> that is totally true. the health care law was sold as a win-win. but the truth is, there are winners and losers. some of the winners who were poor people who were uninsured. a lot of the winners are older people. the losers have to be the younger people. this was created by design to transfer wealth from younger people to older people. it doesn't work unless there's

enough young people in the pool who are healthy but don't frankly need as much insurance. they should have catastrophic insurance. so really this system only works if young people are picking up the tab and paying for older people. until the affordable care act passed, you would have the situation where an older person might be paying a at 7-3 ratio more for health insurance than a younger person. this law -- a provision of this law says it's now 3-1. without getting to the weeds too much, you're young, you're healthy, your insurance is going up to subsidize older people. it's ironic that president obama is elected and re-elected really by inspiring young people to support him. because in many ways the biggest losers of this presidency.

i'm working on a column right now on this topic. but lit be interesting to see if young people begin to flee en masse because they're going to really be just the victims of this law. >> if it is successful, what does that mean for 2014 elections? >> i do think the 2014 elections, the cake is baked, so to speak. because first of all, there have already been stumbles out of the gate. people are going to be upset, even if obama care theoretically works, they're going to be upset because he said if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. that wasn't true. you're going to have a lot of people like this caller who are not going to be happy. so if it works theoretically, it's going to work in the long term. there are going to be stum onlies or have been along the way.

having said that, if obama care does turn out to be a success over time, it cements his legacy and clearly help democrats going forward. they benefit from the americans believing that big government can make the world better, can take care of citizens. if it works, that that can help democrats. >> two tweets on your analysis. one agrees with you, one does not. if not for the shutdown, ken cucinelli would be governor now. this one said dean young lost because he was not respectable. not because he was tea party. his hometown did not vote for him. >> first of all, it's clearly right. in terms of the second point, i think that's true. there's tea party and tea party. sadly, i think they deflate it. so ken cucinelli and dean young

both part of that narrative of being a tea party. ken cucinelli state senator for many years, an attorney general, a patented attorney. he's clearly a credible competent ledges -- legislator who's conservative. dean young was part of the chief justice war machine. a perpetual candidate had won many times and lost. i agree. i think the tay party and dean young lost for a variety of reasons and i think they frankly nominated the better candidate down in alabama. >> independent caller. >> yes, i very much think that we have -- we basically have a

corporate congress. you know, we have whether they're democrat, republican, independent tea party, they're there to be a public servant. they shut down the government, they didn't lose their pay, they didn't lose their health care. and you know it's about who has the most money. the lobbyists worked for these corporations. if you don't have millions of dollars, what chance do you have of even getting something heard by your congressman? >> i think this is a common lament that the game was rigged and that, you know, whether you're democrat or republican, you sort of work for the lobbyists, yadda, yadda, yadda.

there's truth to that. going to the shutdown specifically, i do think it's important that people need to remember that the house of representatives, they won their elections too. i think it's perfectly fair for them to try to change policy, to push back against obama care. clearly we've seen it's been a debacle. i give republicans credit for seeing that this was going to be a debacle. they would have been better suited to let it go forward on october 1 and let the american public see how bad it was. so to the extent that the conservatives had the civil war over the shutdown, it was really a matter of strategy. a lot of conservatives believe that let it -- don't fight it. don't shut the government down. but look, you could make an argument, this is not my argument, you could make an argument that if you really believe that obama care is bad for this country and that it's

going to hurt people, then you have do whatever it takes to stop it and so if that's what you believe, you can say ted cruz is a hero because he was willing to do whatever it took to stop obama care from being implemented. i happen to think it was an unwise strategy. you can even say it's heroic. >> gop trying to divide young against old. everyone needs insurance. no one thinks they're going to get sick. but they do. $17 trillion in debt and $80 trillion in unfunded liabilities already enough of a burden on our youth? democratic caller. >> listen to y'all and a warning to all americans out there. we're out here in america and want no job -- it's all one or

more up against obama care. people need to go to work. that's what we want to see as americans out here now. we want people to bring jobs. how many congressmen brought job bills to the work. there are millions of people out of work. we could grow our way out of this thing, man. where's the optimism? >> what about jobs legislation? people call in a lot about that. members of congress on the hill talk about jobs. have we seen legislation? >> i would argue that when republicans when they tried to defund obama care are voting for job legislation. what stops jobs from being created? in many cases it reegs lags and having to comply with regulation. so a lot of policies are seen as quote/unquote jobs bill, i would argue to be controversial. but i would argue you could say raising the minimum wage is a jobs killer because you may have

fewer people making more money and less people who are hired. you own a small business, you have to pay for fewer people. you can hire fewer people. republicans don't get credit for this. they're not good at getting good publicity or pr. and it looks like they're being recalcitrant and they're the party of no. but in fairness to them, a lot of the bills they tried to kill, the things they try to fight, especially on regulation, are actually an ape tempt to help businesses thrive. i mean i give you like a sort of local example here in washington, d.c. which i wrote about. i'm a huge fan of this car service where you can use your smart phone, order a car, they

have gps. you don't have the hail a cab. they have had a difficult time in the nation's capitol because guess what? the tax si companies, the d.c. taxi stands to lose. it becomes a political fight. you have this innovation, this smart, fun idea which benefits the consumer but you have incumbent companies who want to stifle it. this goes back to the theory of creative destruction, you know? it used to be there were horses and buggies and then the automobile came along and put them out of business. when technology happens, there are losers -- there are people who used to have a good service. now there's a better service. sometimes what liberal policies do is try to prop up and save failing ideas.

they do it under the gitz of compassion. this is a big fill sof kpal debate that takes place. you see republicans getting bad publicity, they're doing things to stop those things. >> what are the odds that republican leadership will, quote, get out of the way and allow the tea party to win the senate? >> that's a loaded question. let me use one example of a race that i think sort of defies that question. which is in arkansas, arguably the most exciting republican running this year is a guy naped tom cotton who head's a tea

party guy. former military guy. in many ways a main stream. >> serving his first term. >> serving the first term, right? in many ways a main stream republican. i would reject the buy nair choice to say whether or not he's a tea party guy or an establishment guy. but i think maybe he's like in marco rubio's sweet spot which he can turn off the side that marco rubio managed to do this year. i think it's a false choice to have to choose. ultimately what i hope happens is that conservatives find a way to elect smart, mature conservatives, not rhinos, but conservatives but who go to washington and govern as opposed to just being in it for the theatrics and the gimmickry. i reject the notion you get the

tea party. you reject conservatives who are energetic but want to get things done. >> jane? >> i want to thank you so much about what you're saying. i felt the same thing about republicans leaving tim cucinelli in the cold ant not do anything to help him. i wanted to ask him how do you get your word out to the public. i called my friends in virginia and they feel i'm naive about the tea party. it's not really made up of grassroots mom and pops but some kind of sinister movement. they did not vote for tim cucinelli. i said i don't understand where are you getting the information from. i think you have a very important message because i was a flaming democrat when i lived in new york. i always admire the senator that always said you can have your own opinion, but you can't have

your own facts. i want to ask how you, mr. matt lewis, can get your analysis out more? that's my question. >> tell your friends. clip the ads at the daily caller. send us some money. this is a message that we can -- as someone who writes, it's awesome. my dad was a correctional officer so he literally went to prison for 30 years. you know, voluntarily so i could get to write in a fight about politics. so i feel very honored and privileged to get to do what i do. i hope it makes some small difference. you have to keep sort of preaching it. i do think that there were a lot of mistakes made in virginia and the race. and i will say that the negative ads, terry mcauliffe and the

other democrats ran against cucinelli forced him in virginia. a lot of them were false. the social issues. there was some notion he wanted to ban all contraception which they called a pants on fire lie. they see the tv ads, they believe them. more money pushing back on the negative ads, we might have had a different result. not everyone reads my blog or they know that. >> the very issue saying republicans have not figured out a way to respond to the war on women charge. romney failed at it last year. and tim cucinelli did it in virginia. >> democrats had to figure out this is the way to win elections. obviouslily barack obama and terry mcauliffe, a very effective way. and it's -- if you look at the

demographics of who elected terry mcauliffe, you look at it as the cohort of unmarried women. he won that by 40% or something. it's ridiculous. so clearly those ads targeting him saying he opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest or that he wants to ban all contraception or make it hard for women to get divorced, these issues when they run over and over, they hit home. christie was not a victim of this. i wrote a piece in the week that he needs to be very careful. get in the face of teach earles and say do your job. imagine doing that in davenport, iowa to a teacher and imagine that teacher becoming sandra fluke. that could be a war on women. chris christie, confrontational, a lot of people see it as refreshing and charming and fun now.

you can see it easily how they can take a teacher and make them to a call celeb and chris christie could do a bully and not in a good way. >> these are the exit polls out of virginia. look at the female vote. terry mcauliffe getting 51% at the female vote. tim cucinelli getting 42%. >> you look at the married, that's the key. married women, a little bit for terry mcauliffe. unmarried women dramatically on the democratic side. >> by the way, the piece he was referencing, here is the headline, watch out, chris christie. it's a trap. if you think re-election means your temper flareups won't matter in 2016, you're wrong. >> let me ask you, would you hand a loaded gun to somebody who said they wanted to shoot you? >> i think that's a perfect

analogy to the anti-establishment tea party being upset with the establishment, it's not handing them that gun. >> a lot of folks who live that way. it's amazing. there's a real sense that the republican establishment cannot be trusted. a lot -- frankly, i'm -- i'm surprised by this. because i agree there have been a lot of hypocrisy. if you go back to the george w. bush administration with spending, he didn't have a lot of the spending bills, the bailout. t.a.r.p., all sorts of things happened. the tom delay era. some cronyism. there were a lot of reasons why the conservatives might just reject circa 2003, medicare part

d. there's a lot of reason why conservatives might reject circa 2003 republican party. but bill frist isn't in the senate anymore. dennis hastert isn't there. george w. bush isn't there. the past couple of years, you elected an incredible crop of rubio to rand paul to suzanna martinez, to chris christie. you know, there's been so many exciting things happening. and i don't get why now there's this resentment maybe they won't be happy until mitch mcconnell and john boehner is on. why not give it to pat toomey and marco elliott and rand paul. there's a new flock of conservatives. why not give them a chance to get things done. but they're being labeled the establishment now too. and why should they pay -- i agree, ten years ago, republicans did some bad things.

they can move past that. >> the votes. just by comparison. the female vote for chris christie, 57% compared to the female opponent who garnered 42% of the vote in that state. >> absolutely. chris christie has a great, great night. and i think a couple of things to learn there is, one, i think is clearly when you can be a conservative. chris christie is a conservative. he defunded planned parenthood in new jersey. yet, the priority is helping people in new jersey. standing up against washington, d.c. helping them to overcome the hurricane. you can be a hard core conservative but give the sense that you care about getting things done and standing up for your voters. that's the big key. one got the sense in virginia that cucinelli is more

interested in ending ideas, ending the cultural war. it's harder helping people when you haven't been the governor. that was a benefit. as i said, there's a danger for chris christie to assume that now he can -- everything he did in new jersey, he can do again if he rubs for president and he'll win the women vote. very dangerous against hillary clinton. >> possibly the hispanic vote to show our viewers he got 51% of the hispanic vote compared to 45% of the vote. two e-mails for you i want to show you in sticking with this theme in 2016. ben in ohio, republicans are in a fight between the pro business, pro illegal immigrant, chief labor, outsourcing jobs wing headed by the chamber of commerce and the libertarian tea party wings trying to bring back conservative values of personal responsibility, smaller governments, and state's rights.

i lean to the conservative ring. rand paul would be a decent option. here's the winning ticket, chris christie and martinez. >> this binary choice between the establishment and the tea party. it's messy. it's not that simple. i'll give you one example. libertarians tend to be pro immigration reform. so that sort of shows how these things go. rand paul did not support this specific bill. he talked about citizenship and reform. libertarians in general whether they're tea parties tend to be very much in favor of immigration and of immigration refor reform. chris christie and suzanna

martinez would be a very interesting ticket. very interesting. two governors, two winners. but rubio was cuban. she's mexican-american heritage. and i think that would be very interesting. we'll have to see. but the temptation would be for christie tooe -- i tell you what that would be like. it would be like in '92 when bill clinton became the nominee. and rather than balancing the ticket with the northern liberal, he doubled down and picked al gore, two young seen as sort of moderate democrats so they had this interesting brand. it will be a temptation for him to go to the right and balance the ticket with a rand paul, someone in the u.s. senate who's a proven conservative. and martinez would be doubling down on a more pragmatic version. but i tell you what electorally, watch out.

new jersey is in play. mexico is in play. they're a lot harder for democrats to push. that would change the blue versus red state paradigm we've gotten used to in the past decade. >> battle creek, michigan, democratic caller. >> i wanted to talk about the history of the obama care and its origins. i'm thinking it's a middle of the road health care policy. it's patterned after romney care, which apparently is working in massachusetts. it uses ideas of the heritage foundation. the individual mandate was founded by the heritage foundation in 1989. republicans introduced similar legislation in 1992. senate republicans for health care. so you guys are complaining this is a radical, radical thing when it's filled with republican

ideas. then the other problem is you guys have complained for four years. you jumped up and down and complaining about how awful obama care is. there is, as far as i know, is no republican alternative. none that's been passed in the house. you don't have a comprehensive health care plan. the health care costs have been rising and rising and rising for the last 20 years. they're projected to continue to rise if there is no change. so what is the republican alternative to the awful, awful, horrible, terrible ghastly obama care? what's really romney care? >> first it's true that i guess in the 1990s, there were conservatives who were trying to be proactive and look for ways to solve the health care problems. some of them, not all -- it's wrong to say all republicans embrace this idea and rallied

around it. but there were some conservative leaders who thought a mandate would be a good idea. they thought it was a conservative solution just breaking your arm and showing up in the emergency room and expecting other people to pick up the tab isn't conservative. clearly that idea did not fly. whether it's opportunism. hillary care or obama care, opposing the mandates on principal for whatever reason, conservatives today, i think, by in large oppose mandates. the question is what is the alternative is important. there have been proposals. congressman pryce, for example, proposed some things. the idea is bantied about like trying to allow insurance companies to sell across state lines. allowing catastrophic insurance where essentially you could protect yourself from bankruptcy

if you're diagnosed with cancer, yet, if you're going to the hospital for something routine or the doctor's office, you could pay out of pocket. there's a lot of different ideas, medicaid expansion. i'll agree with the caller and say i think republicans need to very quickly settle. there have been conservative proposals for the republican version of health care, they have not settled on something. and i think it's very important that while you are poking holes in obama care, and it's easy to do right now, there is a republican alternative a lot of people buy in on. that's going be the problem with this struggle is getting everybody to buy in on a conservative alternative. >> the house returns to washington this week coming up. and on their agenda is a piece of legislation called keep your insurance plan act of 2013. so they will be taking this issue of what president obama said over your insurance plan and now the cancellation notices directly to the house floor this week.

>> washington journal is devoting the entire program to issues important to veterans. first, michael noonan. he talks about the divide that exists between regular citizens and the military, the subject of the ref cent op-ed. ward carroll, editor of military.com. he talks about on going efforts to find service members' jobs when they return overseas and a broader issues facing veterans including the backlog of disability claims and the concerns over the house. tom tarantino joins us. washington journal is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> next, q&a with todd

easterbrook. and prime minister david cameron answers questions about the members of the house of common sense and the eta to discuss carbon emissions regulations for power plants. >> this week on "q&a," journalist, columnist george easterbruk discusses "the king of sports, football's impact on america." >> greg easterbrook, why did you decide to name your latest book, the king of sports? >> the good and bad of football. it has both. the king of sports. the most important, most popular, most exciting game and the most important country in the worl